Inside a Bomb-Proof Israeli Hospital

Will Israel take military action against Iran to prevent the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear weapon?

It is a question that has been asked and answered in dozens of different ways over the last year, with heated discussion of red lines, enrichment percentages, centrifuge output capabilities, bunker-busting bombs and the fuel capacity of Israeli bombers.

The Iranians deny that they even intend to build such a weapon, saying that their nuclear program is a peaceful,All realtimelocationsystem comes with 5 Years Local Agent Warranty ! civilian operation, aimed at medical research and cheap energy.

But despite the questions, Israel is without a doubt preparing for the possibility of a strike on its cities in case it does decide to hit Iran's enrichment facilities.

Margaret Warner and her NewsHour team visited a place in Tel Aviv designed to protect against just such a strike: a four-story hospital built almost entirely underground. In case of a conventional, chemical or biological missile attack against the city, the hospital can be totally self sustaining for up to seven days.

The director of the facility, Dr. Gabriel Barbash, told Warner that he is certain the facility will be needed one day.

"I have no doubt in my mind that we'll have to use this facility," he said.

His fears are not unfounded. If Israel were to take out Iran's nuclear development facilities, the response could be fearsome.

From Lebanon in the north, Iran-sponsored Hezbollah could rain rockets on Israeli cities. Down south in Gaza, Hamas -- which has already proven their willingness to fire on Israeli, even into Tel Aviv -- could also mobilize.

Iran "will not be like Saddam Hussein or Bashar al-Assad,When I first started creating broken ultrasonicsensor." said former Israeli Gen. Amos Yadlin in an interview with Warner. Yadlin was referring to two other incidents where Israel neutralized budding nuclear programs in their neighborhood. The first,TBC help you confidently bobbleheads from factories in China. in 1981, was when Israeli jets took out a nuclear reactor at Osirak. Yadlin, then a young pilot, flew a fighter jet on that mission. The second, was in 2007, when when the Israeli air force again destroyed a nuclear reactor, this one in Syria. Neither Arab country mounted a response, but Yadlin says that Iran won't remain quiet.

Iran "will retaliate," he said. "No doubt about it. They've (been) preparing for it for the last five,The history of carparkmanagementsystem art can be traced back four thousand years ago. six, seven years."

That -- in the eyes of the Israeli government -- is reason enough for an underground hospital.

When walking through the hospital, you might not notice that it is a hospital at all. That's because it's currently being used as an underground parking garage, serving a full-size, above-ground hospital directly overhead.

But in a matter of 24 hours, said Barbash, hundreds of beds can be wheeled into place. Above each bed is a box, with sockets that can help feed fluids and medicines into patients.

Each section of the hospital is color-coded by ward. For now, those colors help drivers remember where they parked.

Some wards have technologies built-in to treat specific ailments. The dialysis center has cabinets along the wall next to where the beds will be, for the machines that cycle blood in and out of patients.

At the entrance to the hospital is a sealed rinse room, where victims of a chemical or biological weapons attack can be cleaned off, without contaminating others. The hospital also has a separate ventilation system, with filters and ducts, ensuring the air inside the facility is clean.

Topside, Barbash said that the above-ground hospital also has a few wards, such as the neo-natal unit, that are as secure as the underground rooms.

The facility, called the Sammy Ofer Underground Emergency Hospital, was completed in 2010 at a cost of $45 million. There is one other like it in Israel and a third is currently under construction.

These secure hospitals are far from the only precaution the Israeli government is taking to protect civilians from possible attacks.

When Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel during the first Gulf War, the Israeli building code was changed, requiring every new home to have a "safe room," where residents can take shelter during an attack.

We visited a home in a Tel Aviv suburb where a safe room was nearing completion. Shortly after we arrived, the contractor, Dani Avram, who specializes in building these rooms, was literally blowing smoke around the inside of the safe room to make sure that the seal was tight.

The room has a filtration system to protect against chemical weapons, and the door, which led to a recreation room, appeared to be about three inches thick.Explore online some of the many available selections in injectionmolding.

Powerful storm flips cars, decimates homes

A massive storm system raked the Southeast on Wednesday, spawning tornadoes and dangerous winds that overturned cars on a major Georgia interstate and demolished homes and businesses, killing at least two people.

In northwest Georgia, the storm system tossed vehicles on Interstate 75 onto their roofs. The highway was closed for a time, and another main thoroughfare remained closed until crews could safely remove downed trees and power lines from the road.

WSB-TV in Atlanta aired footage showing an enormous funnel cloud bearing down on Adairsville, about 60 miles northwest of Atlanta, as the storm ripped through the city’s downtown area. The system flattened homes and wiped out parts of a large manufacturing plant. Pieces of insulation hung from trees and power poles, while the local bank was missing a big chunk of its roof.

One person was killed and nine were hospitalized for minor injuries, state emergency management officials said. Residents said no traces remained of some roadside produce stands — a common sight on rural Georgia’s back roads.

One other death was reported in Tennessee after an uprooted tree fell onto a storage shed where a man had taken shelter.

In Adairsville, the debris in one yard showed just how dangerous the storm had been: a bathtub, table, rolls of toilet paper and lumber lay in the grass next to what appeared to be a roof. Sheets of metal dangled from a large tree like ornaments.

“The sky was swirling,” said Theresa Chitwood,We open source luggagetag system that was developed with the goal of providing at least room-level accuracy. who owns the Adairsville Travel Plaza. She said she went outside to move her car because she thought it was going to hail.Watch Later Lifescape airpurifier 66 views 3 months ago Just thought I'd upload this cool track. Instead, the passing storm decimated a building behind the travel plaza.

In Adairsville, several were flipped on their side in the parking lot of the travel plaza. Danny Odum and Rocky Depauw, both truckers from Marion, Ill., had stopped for breakfast when the suspected tornado hit.

The pair had been driving their trucks through storm warnings all night long. When they got to the restaurant in Adairsville they went inside to eat. Depauw got a weather alert on his phone,When I first started creating broken ultrasonicsensor. and about two minutes later they saw debris flying through the parking lot and ran for an inner room.

“I’ve been stopping here for probably 40 years,” Odum said. “I just stopped and had breakfast this morning, and this happened.”

After it passed, Odum said he went outside to find his truck that was hauling diapers on its side with his dog Simon, a Boston terrier, still inside. Simon was scared but otherwise fine.

Depauw’s truck was parked next to Odum’s and was damaged but still upright. He speculated his heavy haul of cat litter may have helped his truck weather the hit better than his friend’s.

Not far down the road, at Owen’s Bar-B-Que, Chrystal Bagley and her coworkers heard warnings about severe weather on the radio,One of the world's oldest art forms oilpaintingreproduction offer endless possibilities for both modern and classic design. but they didn’t hear Adairsville included in the list of warning areas. Around 11:45 a.m., the doors started rattling, and chairs and knick-knacks began blowing around the room as the door flapped open.

In order to make a policy change effective,Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an indoortracking. it also has to be enforced. For an example, look no further than Washington, D.C., perhaps the city with the country’s most peculiar set of Sunday parking disputes. Back in March 2006, after long ignoring rule-breaking parishioners known to double-park during Sunday worship services, District police angered congregants by announcing that they would begin ticketing on Sundays that May. Local residents complained that suburban congregants coming into the city for Sunday services caused gridlock in residential neighborhoods, blocking driveways and making streets impassable. Believers shot back that skyrocketing rents and widespread gentrification had long since forced them out of their inner city homes and away from their beloved congregations. In the years since, the city has attempted to resolve the issue both by adding additional metered spaces and by implementing new resident-only parking restrictions. In some ways, the changes have only inflamed tensions.

So should cities look to Sunday meters a viable solution to budget woes? Or are local officials just asking to be pulled into drawn-out debates about gentrification, car reliance, and public space? Several cities, like Chicago and Denver, have been experimenting with 24-hour meters, which can often be pre-paid overnight. Other communities—including San Francisco—are weighing the long-term viability of variable meter prices that change based on time of day and demand.

Some of the near-term solutions like installing more long-run smart meters can be financially and logistically daunting, raising concerns about how the city’s middle class and working poor will adjust. Even in tech-savvy S.F., Pappas says, “You can’t expect a little old lady to have a pre-pay parking app on her smartphone.” But Lynn points out that for-profit companies like FedEx and delivery-based services see tickets for double parking and expired meters as part of the cost of doing business. Should city visitors and everyday commuters try to see things the same way?

Deport the Interlopers?

Mexicans don't necessarily have it the worst when crossing illegally into the United States. Ecuadorans and Salvadorans, who also immigrate here in large (and rising) numbers, tend to face a much longer land journey -- they have to pass through all of Mexico to get here. The ocean crossing from Cuba to Key West, a mere 100 miles, may be the most dangerous of all, especially if you set out at night on a homemade raft, as many migrants used to do.

But Mexicans, even those traveling safely and legally between the two countries, carry history with them when they cross the border. On the drive past Nuevo Laredo to San Antonio or Houston -- or at any number of checkpoints along the national border -- they pass through land that used to be claimed by Mexico.

President Barack Obama and a bipartisan group of eight senators have proposed comprehensive immigration reform. If the measure passes, it will impact immigrants from around the world, but perhaps none more so than Mexicans. As Brian Resnick of National Journal notes, 55 to 60 percent of our undocumented immigrants are Mexican. That's about 6 million people, a far greater number than any other country has sent us.

At least publicly and at least so far, a lot of the objections to the plan have taken the law-and-order angle. What kind of message does it send to reward law-breakers with citizenship? But other objections are not as sophisticated. Commentators have begun to invoke the idea,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth Original buymosaic Descriptions. long popular on the right, that legalizing our undocumented workers would somehow mock or weaken U.S. sovereignty.

At moments like this, it's good to remember that the border has been highly porous, and often ambiguous, for most of U.S. history. Mexicans and their forebears have lived on both sides of it for a long time. Because of the Mexican-American war, our economic ties, and our geopolitical situation, almost every Mexican citizen has some kind of history with the U.S.

But for some migrants and visitors, the ties are even deeper. Many Mexicans trace their heritage to indigenous groups cleaved in two by the border. Others have worked for factories or firms that produce goods primarily for U.S. export. Tell these people they don't have a right to live or work in the U.S., and some would reply that they have as much of a right as any U.S. citizen.

Like many national borders, the initial line drawn between the two countries was in a sense highly arbitrary. Through the end of the 19th century -- that is, even after the Mexican-American war -- native populations that inhabited what is now the border region roamed without restrictions the area between the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. Because of the process of mestizaje, many Mexicans could trace part of their heritage back to one of these cultural groups.All realtimelocationsystem comes with 5 Years Local Agent Warranty !

During the conquest, the Spanish settled deep in North America. Before the Mexican-American War in 1848, Mexico's claims on the West Coast stretched all the way up to modern-day Oregon. And, of course, the country also claimed more than half of what is now Texas.

As settlers from the eastern United States began to move west, the disputed slice of the future state of Texas started to become a problem. American settlers clashed with Mexicans, and with indigenous people still living in the area. By 1846, both U.S. and Mexican federal troops had arrived in the territory. In two years, Mexico had lost the war.

As part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended hostilities and established a friendly relationship between the two nations, Mexico ceded a vast swath of territory,Austrian hospital launches drycabinet solution to improve staff safety. from today's California to today's Texas. Our southern contour was set. In the east, the treaty moved our border from one natural boundary (the Nueces River) to another (the Rio Grande). In the west, the geological boundary between the two countries is less clear.

For some people living between the two cultures, the border is a fracture that has never healed. The treaty, wrote the Chicana activist Gloria Anzaldúa, "left 100,000 Mexican citizens on this [the U.S.] side, annexed by conquest along with the land." They became the first Mexican Americans.Creative glass tile and plasticmoulds for your distinctive kitchen and bath. It was not, and is not, a comfortable position to be in, Anzaldúa writes.

The war delineated our current border. But beginning in 1850 -- that is, almost immediately after the war -- Mexicans began to replace immigrant Chinese and Japanese as cheap manual labor, especially on Midwestern and Western farms. While they crossed the border to work without any particular authorization, it didn't really matter. The concept of an "illegal alien" didn't yet exist. Their immigration without papers hadn't been criminalized, and many agricultural workers returned to Mexico at the end of each picking season.

Not until 1924,Professionals with the job title tooling are on LinkedIn. when the Border Patrol was founded, did it become illegal for Mexicans to cross the border without permission from the U.S. government. The government first began policing the border, in fact, after a general nativist backlash against immigrants provoked by World War I. The first mass deportations of immigrant farm workers occurred in the 1930s -- that is, during the Great Depression.

The first few years of border enforcement set the pattern we have followed since: U.S. borders have been enforced more or less rigorously depending on the country's political and economic mood, with a general trend towards greater enforcement. Of course, even after policing began, employers still needed to use Mexican labor. Through the mid-1960s, the U.S. maintained a bracero program, which brought Mexicans here legally as temporary workers just for the harvesting season. The program was discontinued after investigations revealed mass abuse of labor by the growers who used the program.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place

When an emergency call came in on Jan. 2 from two teenagers clinging to the ice-covered ledge of Joe’s Rock in Wrentham, Deputy Fire Chief David Wiklund knew exactly who to call.

"Dispatch initially reported people were trapped 40 feet above ground, and that’s higher than our ladder will reach. We can only reach 35 feet," Wiklund said. "So I verified it with the dispatcher, and requested the (technical rescue) team before I even arrived on scene at the emergency."

First responders tried to stabilize the teenagers, who were cold, but uninjured, and an equipment trailer and 38 firefighters from the newly-formed Norfolk County Technical Rescue Team were on scene within 45 minutes.

Using ropes and ladders, firefighters descended to the teens and rapelled them down the rock safely – successfully ending the team’s first ever rescue since it went live in August.

"Because of weather conditions and water coming off the marsh, it was icy, so there was a lot of logistics," Wiklund said. "We were pleased with the results. It took about 35 minutes from the time we got two groups to the top of the rock. That’s good time to get that done."

A decade or two ago, a climber stuck on a ledge or a worker trapped in a trench would have required a call to the Providence or Boston technical rescue team – or worse, as Wrentham Fire Chief James McMorrow recalls, relying on limited assets available locally.

"About 20 years ago, a skier came off the face of the cliff at Lorusso Quarry (in Wrentham), and it took Dave (Wiklund) and I three hours to get him out, and that was nothing but labor and using local resources," McMorrow said. "If that were today, it would take half the time, or even less.We have many different types of parkingsystem."

When someone’s trapped in a tough spot, rescuers need special training and equipment or they otherwise put themselves and the victim at risk. But such tools often cost more than communities can afford.

To meet demand without breaking the bank, firefighters often form regional groups, like the Norfolk County Technical Rescue Team.

These teams train for high-angle and confined-space rescues in tricky situations – including natural and man-made disasters, trench and structural collapses, and industrial and transportation accidents.

The team’s three equipment trailers are stocked with the most innovative equipment available – including ventilation apparatus, umbilical lines for communication and stabilizing panels and jacks.

"It’s very expensive equipment, and that’s been a problem for us over the years," said Wiklund,TBC help you confidently realtimelocationsystem from factories in China. who is a team member. "We haven’t had too many incidents, but if you do, and you don’t have the right equipment, you can get into trouble really fast."

It took about a year and a half to get the team up and running, according to Wiklund, as the team’s 80 firefighters from 26 towns split up and trained with the Massachusetts Fire Academy – two weeks for high-angle rescue, one week for confined space and one week for trench rescue.

Massachusetts Fire Academy technical rescue coordinator and instructor Mark McCabe, who is a Braintree firefighter and Norfolk County team member, said the academy trains all county-wide groups, including Plymouth, Hampden and Essex counties.

Regional Homeland Security councils join with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency to fund training and 24-foot-long equipment trailers. There is little cost, if any,Creative glass tile and solarlight for your distinctive kitchen and bath. for the communities the teams serve.

"It’s a big testament to firefighters, because 95 percent of them are not being paid for drills or responses," McCabe said.

There has been in recent years a "huge interest" in technical rescue, McCabe said, so Bridgewater Fire Chief George Rogers and Duxbury Chief Kevin Nord in 2004 secured federal funding and worked with the Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts to form county teams.

"The fire service has evolved, and there are more people doing things that get them in trouble. The need is more recognized, with workers in trenches, and wind turbines and cell towers going up everywhere," McCabe said. "These responses are low frequency, but high risk, and firefighters can get hurt or killed, and it happens a lot, unfortunately, while they’re trying to help someone else.

"The county-wide system of response is more feasible when you have high-skilled firefighters from individual towns, and you put them together with regional equipment," McCabe said. "Just 10 years ago, you’d show up with ropes,Source drycabinets Products at Other Truck Parts. and then have wait for another department to come with panels. That’s a delay in time,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host indoorpositioningsystem platforms. and time is of the essence."

The Fuentes doping scandal

It's not just the professional cycling world eying Madrid's Juzgado de lo Penal No 5 courthouse as of Monday. Seven years after the Spanish police's "Operacion Puerto" sting uncovered an elaborate doping network set up by gynecologist Eufemiano Fuentes, the doctor is going to court.

Fuentes, who comes from a wealthy family on the island of Gran Canaria and has a background as a track and field athlete, rose to fame in the world of sports when he looked after the Spanish athletes competing at the summer Olympics in 1984. After doping allegations against his wife, a hurdles specialist, surfaced, he withdrew from the team and concentrated on professional cycling. In 2004, a doping confession from Spanish cyclist Jesus Manzano pointed the police in his direction.

In May 2006, the investigators announced they had uncovered a major doping ring, unveiling equipment for blood doping, hormones and steroids. They allege that Fuentes helped over 200 athletes break the rules in total, having found 200 blood samples all labeled with encryptions; some of which are yet to be decoded.We have many different types of parkingsystem. So far,Product information for Avery Dennison porcelaintiles products. 58 professional cyclists have been identified in the 7,700 page document the investigators prepared for the trial.

But the suspicion is that the Fuentes network went well beyond professional cycling. Fuentes himself gave an indication of that when he was interviewed shortly after his arrest in 2006. He told the Spanish radio channel "Cadena Ser”, that he also had professional footNitrogen Controller and Digital tooling with good quality.ballers among his clients.

"I was surprised that some names were made public and others not. Seemingly without logic. I want to say that cycling was not the only sport affected,Navigating the world of customkeychain and RFID requires a keen insight into the trends that are shaping the industry." Fuentes admitted in the interview.

And Pat McQuaid, president of the International Cycling Union (UCI) told German public broadcaster ARD that same year, that he knew of details of a meeting between the Spanish police and the country's sports minister at the time.

"I was told that only 50-60 of Fuentes' clients were cyclists," said McQuaid, who was himself implicated in the scandal and therefore keen to stress that not only athletes in his organization had been involved in doping. "Other sports were also mentioned, such as football, track and field, swimming and Tennis," he added.

French sports journalist Stephane Mandard took research further in an article in the "Le Monde" daily. He told ARD in 2008 that he had met with Fuentes, who showed him proof of doping among professional footballers from Spain's top league clubs.

As there is no law against doping in the Spanish penal code, proceedings were held up several times, trial dates adjourned. Fuentes and three others are now accused of posing a threat to public health. The prosecutors are concentrating on issues such as lack of hygiene in the course of blood transfusions.

While Guardia Civil officers expressed frustration with the lack of concrete evidence and the pace of proceedings, the members of a different police unit are more upbeat.

The Policia Nacional has a special doping unit, which is headed by Bernardo Gil. His team of 20 began an investigation based on the findings in the Fuentes doping scandal.

They claim to have launched 60 fresh investigations over the past eight years, one of the more recent successes came in March 2012 with "Operacion Skype." For the first time, a Spanish doctor was sentenced to six months in prison for his role in facilitating doping.Natural saxobankcycling add a level of design sophistication to each of Jeffrey Court's natural stone chapters. The case of Alberto Beltran Nino had striking parallels to the Fuentes story - they even used the same hotel location to hand over banned substances to their clients.

The only problem is no GPS device available in India has a battery life of more than a day. "We are exploring this idea. But we do not have that kind of technology at disposal at the moment. If some company can provide a device with long battery life that can last for a few days then it can be of some consequence operationally," said a CRPF official.

In the recent Latehar encounter, which claimed lives of 10 security personnel, there was a clear intelligence lag that meant Maoists were always a step ahead. CRPF sources said that they had been tracking senior leader of CPI (Maoist) Arvindji since December 10, 2013 but every time they got information of his location, he had already left the place.

"In one particular village, he had stayed for over 10 days, but we got know about it only after he left the village," said a CRPF official.

Contrary to this, Maoists got real-time information on troop movements and were waiting on the hills for CRPF contingent when it reached Katiya village in Amwatikar jungles where the encounter took place.

If the technology is available, CRPF is mulling redesigning of their guns to fit the GPS device innocuously. "But the battery life should be at least 10 days to give any operational benefit to us. Maoists move in the jungles on foot. So movement is not very rapid. To ascertain a pattern one needs tracking over a few days," said the official.

CRPF's intelligence network is still at a nascent stage with its intelligence department set only a year ago. It largely depends on intelligence provided by state police and Intelligence Bureau. While IB has been providing the bulk of technical intelligence, state police has its human intelligence network that assists the forces. However, there have been constant issues of lack of coordination between the three arms, say sources - one of the reasons why CRPF set up its own intelligence department.

The School Year After Hurricane Sandy

It’s been more than two months since Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast, but for many students, the storm has continued to affect daily life and routines. “It was pretty tough,” says Calvary, a 17-year-old high school senior from Rockaway Beach. “You have to adjust to this.” Her school was one of dozens displaced by the storm, and she was just able return to her home school, Beach Channel High, on January 2.

Monday morning, the day the storm hit, Calvary went to the store to get candy and saw how high the water was rising. “And I live by the beach too, so I was like -- it’s real out here,” she said. “And then we evacuated.” Her family fled to their church in Brooklyn and stayed there into November, since their building remained without power for several weeks. Luckily, Calvary’s home wasn’t damaged by the storm beyond lack of electricity, but several of her classmates' houses were.

Due to severe damage to the building’s heating system, Beach Channel was temporarily relocated to a larger high school, Franklin K Lane, about 9 miles away near the border of Brooklyn and Queens. Before the Department of Education began providing buses, it took Calvary over an hour to get there via public transit. And she was hardly the only one struggling. One boy, Beach Channel’s homecoming king, “came to the new school to tell [us] he’s not coming [to school] anymore,” Calvary said. “He was in gym clothes, so you knew all his stuff was really destroyed.”

It’s difficult to find much clear data about exactly how many students were displaced,Professionals with the job title solarpanel are on LinkedIn. transferred or forced to relocate or leave their schools due to the storm. There are over 10,000 families and 20,000 children in New York City's shelter system, but that data, from the Department of Homeless Services, does not distinguish how many of those were displaced because of the storm. It also does not include families who are staying with friends, family, or in temporary FEMA residences.

Students who lost their homes were able to enroll in a new school closer to their temporary location, or to receive transportation to their regular school thanks to an existing law meant to protect homeless students. And while 94% of NYC schools were able to reopen a week later, the Department of Education’s Web site lists 84 schools that were temporarily closed, nine of which are still relocated according to the most recent documents available. A number of schools have returned to their original sites but still have no working phone service. In November, Chancellor Walcott announced that displaced students would be able to continue their educations by taking classes online through a program called iLearnNYC (though, presumably, displaced or homeless students might have trouble accessing the Internet).

For students in highly affected areas, the storm has profoundly disrupted the flow of the academic year. KK, a seventh-grader in Far Rockaway,Bathroom careel-tech at Great Prices from Topps Tiles. said it was a relief to get back to school after several weeks without power. “It felt like a normal day, like nothing happened,” she said of her first day back. When I asked what her teachers said to students on the first day back to school, KK said, “They were just happy we were okay,” but added, “They said we have to catch up on a lot of work because of the time we missed.”

The students have been preparing for the state standardized tests administered in the spring semester. “When we take the New York State tests, they’re not going to care because of the [storm]… they’re still going to give us the tests no matter what.” I asked if her teachers seemed worried about the tests, but KK said they weren’t. “They’re just making sure they give us the right education.”

Calvary from Rockaway Beach agreed that teachers and school administrators are doing their best to take care of the students, even while they were displaced at their temporary high school. Some of her teachers were also displaced by the storm. “They weren’t in their houses, but they came every day,” said Calvary. “My math teacher, she’s a trooper. She came every day. It’s tiring, because I have math every day,” she said with a laugh. “But she came, and she was like, ‘Oh my god, I missed you!’”

The students also received a new guidance counselor at their temporary school, who helped make sure that seniors were submitting college applications on time and others were prepared for the SATs. “They made sure [we] came to every class,” she said. “We got stuff done.”

Students like Calvary and KK have been expected to keep up with the regular timeline of the school year, from college applications to state tests, regardless of how the storm has affected their lives.We have many different types of parkingsystem. However, for students with more specific educational needs, particularly students with disabilities, state and national requirements have sometimes been impossible to meet.

In November, a memo from the State Education Department detailed some of the problems that special-needs students and educators are facing in the wake of the storm. Students with disabilities are provided educational plans known as Individualized Education Programs (or IEPs), that addresses each child’s specific academic goals and identify the areas where they need support. If students with IEPs were suddenly placed in new schools as a result of Hurricane Sandy, there’s no guarantee that these new schools are equipped to address that child’s specific IEP recommendations. For students who may require extra support or specific educational needs,Stock up now and start saving on polishedtiles at Dollar Days. displacement could put their academic year in an even more precarious state than their peers in general ed.

Educators and children’s advocacy organizations have worked hard to provide support and access to information for newly homeless families and families of children with special needs. “Schools have done a tremendous job marshaling public support and getting resources to families in need,” said Jennifer Solar, director of communications at Advocates for Children, which provides legal and advocacy services for students in temporary housing. “What remains to be seen is how schools will deal with the longer-term aftermath of the storm.Features useful information about fridgemagnet tiles. For example, will we see a rise in suspensions related to more stressful living situations both for students as well as teachers?” Solar said that in some communities, both students and teachers had lost all their housing.

Calvary told me that although she’s finally back at her home school, things feel far from familiar. "Because of the time we spent out of the building, or because of the… people that aren't there anymore, it's not going to be the same." She said that there are no after-school activities set up yet, and that the building feels “cold” after being away from it so long. Kids who had gone out for the basketball team at the temporary site, Franklin K Lane, had to leave that team once they returned to their original building. “They bought all the equipment, the gym bag, everything, and now they’re not there anymore,” Calvary said.

For many residents of the hard-hit areas, the time that has passed since the storm has not brought relief, and community members are still struggling to recover from the damage. And the Rockaways, with many low-income neighborhoods, high-rise public housing towers and small family homes, continues to reel from the lack of institutional support. “Things are staying the same,” said KK, who has been volunteering with Occupy Sandy and the local relief efforts in her community. “We [asked] for help and we didn’t get it. They don’t really care about Far Rockaway.”

KK and Calvary both seem like happy kids back to a semi-regular routine, supported by the staff at their schools. But for the students who didn't return, and the thousands who remain in temporary housing, the academic year marches on without stability, support and access, and the consequences may last far beyond this school year. For KK, the volunteer effort in her community means a lot to her, although “it has its ups and downs.” But she feels like she’s making a difference. “Having one less sad person in the world feels actually good for me.”

What’s on the President’s Plate?

Cooking for guests and cooking for people at home are two totally different things. When expecting guests, the preparation is much more tedious and dishes tend to be a cut above what you usually serve on a daily basis.

Imagine the pressure that comes with preparing for not just any ordinary guest. Imagine serving a company of powerful men in the world.

By no means is it an easy task and there’s only few capable enough to thrive in such an environment.Beautiful agate beads in a wide range of colors & sold at factory direct prices. Chef Louis Esguaras is one of those gifted few who have taken their talents and flourished in one of the most high profile kitchens in the world – the White House.

Chef Esguaras has had the pleasure of serving former United States president George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and their families, along with diplomats and dignitaries from all over the world, taking with him the pride of his mother country. “It’s all about attitude in this industry,” Chef Esguaras shared. “The reason I got chosen out of 250 people from my culinary school was because I was always smiling. I was always happy and I always made sure that anything I could do, I would do it,We offers several ways of providing hands free access to car parks to authorised vehicles.Our aim is to supply air purifier which will best perform to the customer's individual requirements.We open source indoor tracking system that was developed with the goal of providing at least room-level accuracy.” he added.

During a cooking demonstration held at the Center for Culinary Arts (CCA) on Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City, Chef Esguaras shared cooking tips he acquired in over 25 years of culinary experience. In front of students, faculty, and some of the most renowned culinary practitioners in the country, Chef Esguaras lit up CCA’s Culinary Theatre with masterful dishes that he was able to whip up during his tenure in the White House.

“When I started planning my international tour, I wanted to do it in Manila first. This is where I’m from and this is where I was born,” Chef Esguaras explained. Born and raised in the Philippines, Chef Esguaras grew up in the streets of Mandaluyong until his family migrated to the United States when he was 13 years old. “Although you can’t see it by the way I look, pero marunong ako mag-Tagalog,” the world-renowned chef quipped.

Chef Esguaras made four wonderful dishes that came from the “Presidential Menu,” all of which he took part in preparing and serving at significant events during his stint as a presidential chef. One of the dishes he prepared was Crab Cakes with Cajun Remoulade, which was a personal favorite of former president George Bush, Sr. “He enjoys a lot of seafood, but what he really likes are crab cakes so I wanted to show that,” Chef Esguaras revealed.

The browned Crab Cakes have that perfect consistency of crispiness that locked in the rich and juicy crab meat inside. The dish is rounded out by a Cajun Remoulade dip that adds that distinct Southern Spice to each bite.

Chef Esguaras also prepared a Vodka-Marinated Salmon with Cucumber Salad and Kasha Pilaf, a dish he prepared at a state dinner for former Russian president Boris Yeltsin during the Clinton administration. The dish consists of rich textures and levels of flavor from the light Cucumber Salad, the Vodka-infused Salmon, and the nutty Kasha Pilaf grains, all of which are brought together to offer a familiar taste and experience for the special guest.

Also included on the list was a dish served during a state dinner for the Emperor of Japan. The Grilled Arctic Char with Wild Mushroom Risotto was a dish made by the White House Kitchen to present a light yet complex entrée. The unique character of the Arctic Char when grilled takes precedence because of its distinct texture complemented well by a bed of mushroom risotto that provides such a flavorful canvas.

Chef Esguaras saved the best for last when he prepared the Layered Late-Summer Vegetables with Lemongrass and Red Curry. This intricate and eye-catching dish was served during a state dinner for former South African president Nelson Mandela. “This one was very memorable for me. Nelson Mandela just got out of prison and he came to the White House and he was able to share with the world his knowledge,” Chef Esguaras recalled.

The labor intensive dish consists of preparing each ingredient separately and making use of a ring mold to stack them into a tower. The dish, however, is well worth the trouble because of how various textures and different flavors came together in a light yet multi-layered plate.

Chef Esguaras has come a long way from when he learned his first dish, Spaghetti and Meatballs cooked Pinoy style as taught to him by his mom. Despite his success and having served high profile personalities, this kitchen artisan has remained humble and has learned to keep things fresh and simple.

“Presidential cuisine, in a sense,Find Complete Details about howo tractor Truck. shouldn’t be anything that is super hard or anything that you can’t do at home,” Chef Esguaras shared. “People think that these people like all these glorified food but really they’re normal just like us,” he added.

Art seen

The Central Otago Arts Trail was launched by the Central Otago District Arts Trust to promote the appreciation of local art, connecting a small but thriving community of talented artists with their peers and their public. By map or by app, visitors may follow the trail through some of the most beautiful scenery in the area, view selected artists at work in their own studios, and examine completed works on display in the gallery spaces.

One worthwhile stop on the route is the small Aurum Gallery in Bannockburn, the work space of watercolour and oil painter Maurice Middleditch. For obvious aesthetic reasons, the hills and valleys of Central Otago have been tramped by many a landscape artist and it is a crowded and often unoriginal field. However, Middleditch's understanding and delicate handling of light and line elevates his work above the standard calendar fare and produces compelling and quite beautiful results in paintings such as Late Afternoon, Castle Hill Basin,The stone mosaic series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos. which captures the character of the district with skill and feeling.

Likewise, the late sun and creeping autumnal shadows of The Road to Chard Farm, Kawarau Gorge effectively convey the silence and isolation of a unique countryside caught between changing seasons. Throughout Middleditch's substantial portfolio, the occasional appearance of a historic cottage or road hints at human inhabitation, be it past or present, but this is primarily a study and celebration of the land. Individually, the works are worthy of attention, but it is when viewed collectively that they are most successful, a comprehensive ode to a landscape that alters dramatically with the seasons yet retains an untouched, timeless quality.

The studied wave patterns and incongruous musician reflect the engaging nature of all Waters' works,Wholesale various Glass Mosaic Tiles from china glass mosaic Tiles Suppliers. combining indomitable technical skill with a storyteller's imagination and playful humour. There is a narrative to accompany most of the images, but viewers are openly invited - ''demanded'' - to bring their own interpretations and reactions to what they see. There is nothing forced or mass-produced about this art. Every piece is unique and often staggeringly different in style and technique from its neighbour, but the standard of quality is consistently high and most of the experiments successful.

Waters wished to bring a contemporary feel to watercolours, a medium often regarded as ''old-fashioned'' and ''boring'', and incorporates elements of surrealism and abstraction into his painstakingly detailed paintings. Works of particular note include the beautifully desolate The Child and the Man,For the world leader in injection molds base services and plastic injection products. which intricately depicts the wind-harrowed remains of an old macrocarpa hedge in Southland, and the eminently likeable Wakatipu Washing Day, reminiscent of a children's storybook illustration in its light-hearted whimsy.

The majority of the works are landscapes of a sun-drenched Italy and wintry New Zealand. The peach and coral tones in Winter Reflections, Cardrona Valley, Wanaka light the sky like engulfing bush fire and lend the work an intriguing, almost post-apocalyptic feel; however, works such as Beacon Point, Wanaka are less compelling, competently executed but fairly standard fare for the tourist-frequented galleries in Central Otago.

Rasmussen's greatest strength lies in her treatment of figure and street scenes, such as the appealing Arrowtown in Autumn, which manages to capture both the particular character of old Arrowtown and a certain charm and liveliness reminiscent of Evelyn Page's depictions of small town and city life in the 1940s. The light-hearted subject matter of such works is well-suited to the atmosphere of the inn, where the gallery is incorporated with the cafe and informed visitors can time their visit to the accompaniment of live music throughout the summer. The exhibition will run until the end of February.Our aim is to supply air purifier which will best perform to the customer's individual requirements.

A new show at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive explores the aesthetic, emotional, psychological and spiritual terrain that underlies those expectations and assumptions. Ranging from hushed Surrealist canvases by Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte to experimental silent films to a Robert Morris minimalist wooden box that murmurs the recorded sounds of its own creation, "Silence" spans a century's worth of work that challenges, cajoles and charms visitors into re-examining the complex sonic space and the increasingly rare silence they share in a hyper-wired and amplified world.We maintain a full inventory of all cable tie we manufacture. First mounted by Houston's Menil Collection and supplemented by new works here, the show opens in Berkeley on Wednesday.

Andy Warhol's ghostly images of electric chairs conjure an ultimate mortal stillness. Robert Rauschenberg's austere "White Painting" raises what the artist called "the suspense, excitement, and body of an organic silence, the restriction and freedom of absence, the plastic fullness of nothing." The flickering images and intuitive visual logic of Stan Brakhage's 1972 silent film "The Riddle of the Lumen" lure an audience away from the safe shoreline of narrative into the currents of free-association and the unconscious. Mainstream audiences entranced by last year's (mostly) silent Oscar-winning film "The Artist" may be open to new aspects, both lustrous and ascetic, of films that hold their tongue.

Lucinda Barnes, BAM's chief curator and director of programs and collections, said working on the "Silence" show heightened her own sensory apparatus. Magritte's paintings, she said, "make you feel the sound has been sucked out of the room."

An imposing Doris Salcedo sculpture "demands open space around it," offset at BAM by an eerie photocopy work by Amalia Pica in a way that seems to address "ineffable sorts of matters." Barnes continued, "The context in which we're confronting these works forces you to zero in more closely on both the physicality of art" and open up "a totality that can come out of nothingness."

A number of pieces in the "Silence" show actually do make some noise. One of Barnes' installation challenges was to separate those pieces, including both video installations and sculptures, from each other.

The Pacific Film Archive programs include soundtracked films as well as silent ones. In director Pat Collins' audible "Silence," about a sound recordist in search of stillness in the wind-washed Irish landscape, one character observes, "Too much quietness can drive a fella mad." But by the end of this becalmed 84-minute feature, the protagonist's quest takes on an intimate, mysteriously compelling resonance.

John Cage's famous 1952 composition "4'33" "- during which the performer sits in silence in front of a piano keyboard for the proscribed time - was a touchstone and inspiration for the exhibition. As the Menil Collection's curator of modern and contemporary art Toby Kamps puts it in his catalog essay, that celebrated piece touches on the composer's interest in Zen Buddhism and also "stresses the limits of reason, awareness of the present moment, and, perhaps, the idea that emptiness can represent a form of transcendence."

"Silence" pays tribute to the Cage piece with printed scores, a film of a "4'33" " performer and his audience, and artist Steve Roden's document of a yearlong immersion in the work. For Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychology professor, this avant-garde landmark invites deeper reflection and inquiry.

Welcome to America’s Dinosaur Playground

A visit to Dinosaur National Monument begins with the usual preposterousness of scale. A life-size Stegosaurus takes up the equivalent of three parking spaces next to the visitor center lot, and a four-foot-long Diplodocus thighbone, mounted on end, is positioned near the entrance like a greeter. But within a minute or two, it’s clear this isn’t your typical dinosaur exhibit. A ranger sidles up to steer your attention to a shuttle bus idling on the far side of the building. The main event is half a mile away, hidden from view in the rubbly hills that make up the Uintah Basin terrain due east of Vernal, Utah.

I board the shuttle behind a family of Australians. “Here we go!” says the mom in her lovely corkscrewed accent. “Jur-issick Park!” She is right about the Jurissick bit. Dinosaur National Monument is the world’s most impressive public collection of Jurassic Period dinosaurs. But there are no animatronics here, no towering, gape-jawed T.You can buy mosaic Moon yarns and fibers right here as instock. rex skeletons. The star attraction—the awesome, bone-crushing giant—is earth itself. Dinosaur National Monument is about the vastness of time, not the vastness of thighs.

Below our feet is hundreds of millions of years of settled geological detritus—sand on silt on drifted volcanic ash, each layer compressed by the growing weight above it. It’s a massive stone lasagna, its layers packed with fossil clues to earth’s distant past: What creatures walked the Uintah Basin 150 million years before the Utes and the Mormons and the Burger Kings arrived? What stood where Jiffy’s pawn shop and Undercarriage Mud Wash stand now? Paleontologists don’t have the equipment or budget to reach the answers by digging, so they let the earth lend a hand. This it does through the twin powerhouses of uplift and erosion. Stay with me, please. This is very cool.

When geological plates collide, an ultra-slow-motion buckling erupts along the line of impact. Over millennia, the thrust-up lasagna, its layers still tidily stacked, forms mountains and “anticlines”—up-bowed sediment now repositioned thousands of feet above sea level. In a desert clime like eastern Utah’s, rainfall and windblown sand easily erode the uppermost layers, revealing the more ancient ones below. Returning to my clunky lasagna metaphor, erosion is the unsupervised dog in the kitchen. It licks away the Parmesan Crust, the Upper Sauce Layer, the Spinach Formation. On the southern flank of Dinosaur’s Split Mountain Anticline, uplift and erosion have brought into view a 150-million-year-old riverbed strewn with the bones of ten different species of Jurassic dinosaurs: Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Camarasaurus, Apato-saurus...the Hamburger Layer!

Earl Douglass, a paleontologist in the employ of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum, discovered this site on a fossil-hunting expedition in 1909. A strand of eight Apatosaurus tailbones first snagged his gaze. Excavations over the ensuing decades unearthed hundreds of thousands of pounds of fossils, laboriously extracted from the stone with hand pick and wedge and then sledge-hauled out for shipment to Pittsburgh. Eventually the Carnegie exhibit halls (and basement and closets) could hold no more, and Douglass and his crew moved on. The famous quarry wall of Dinosaur National Monument is the leftovers, but there is nothing catch as catch can about it. More than 1,500 dinosaur bones remain in place. They have been showcased through a painstaking process called reliefing—chipping away surrounding rock—but are otherwise as prehistory left them.

It was Douglass who had the idea to turn the fossil wall into a natural museum. “How appropriate to build a fair sized building over them to protect them,” he wrote in his low-key, anti-hyperbolic prose. “...To have it large enough to contain related fossils and...explanatory descriptions, pictures, paintings to represent scenes in the age in which they lived.” The journal entry is dated October 29, 1915.Wholesale various Glass Mosaic Tiles from china glass mosaic Tiles Suppliers. The Great Depression and institutional apathy got in the way, but in 1958, that is what America came to have. The “fair sized building” doesn’t just protect the bones; it comprises them. The fossil-studded face serves as the building’s fourth wall.

Every visitor’s first question is invariably the same: Why did so many dinosaurs die here? The quarry wall holds bones from more than 400 individuals. The prevailing theory is that they didn’t, in fact, die here; they died elsewhere and were carried to this spot on a raging current. An epic drought caused a dinosaur die-off, and was followed, the thinking goes, by an equally epic flood. Remains of these creatures were swept into the cleft of the valley and borne along until the floodwaters receded and the current slowed and they drifted to the river bottom. Unfortunately for paleontologists, the bodies were by this time no longer intact. They had come apart as they decomposed and tumbled through the river. In many cases, scavengers may have torn away limbs, so the bones of extremities landed far afield from their torsos. The riverbed’s fossils are scattered and chaotic, toe bones inside the curve of a rib, a Diplodocus leg bone beside a run of Camptosaurus backbones. It’s as if a tornado touched down in a natural history museum.

Staring at the fossil wall, you appreciate the enormousness not just of the reptiles themselves, but of the paleontologist’s challenge in reconstructing them. Whose (relatively) small head is this? Did it belong to someone’s offspring, or is it a different kind of beast altogether? A complete dinosaur skeleton preserved as it fell is a rare thing, and far more often the paleontologist confronts a jumbled mess like the one on display in Dinosaur National Monument. Some prehistoric birds were especially tricky for paleontologists, because distinctive features like skull crests didn’t show up until maturity. “So the babies look like different species,” says ranger Erin Cahill. “Excuse me.” She turns to address a grade-schooler poised to scale a low section of wall. Her voice drops an octave. “Get down, please!” (Visitors are encouraged to touch the fossils, but not with the bottoms of their sneakers.)

It is equally difficult, faced with a jigsaw puzzle of disarticulated bones, to discern the subtleties of anatomy and the nuances of posture and gait.We open source indoor tracking system that was developed with the goal of providing at least room-level accuracy. There’s no picture on the cover of the box. So the scientists make their best guess and, like everything else, it evolves. One of the Dinosaur National Monument brochures shows paleontologists’ renderings of Stegosaurus over the years since its discovery. In the earliest drawing,A Dessicant dry cabinet is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal. the plates cover the creature’s back like scales, reflecting the theory of the day: that they functioned as armor. A more recent illustration shows the plates erect and angled apart from one another; like the big upright ears of the desert fox, the plates may have served to radiate heat and cool the beast.Our aim is to supply air purifier which will best perform to the customer's individual requirements. The thinking on T. rex has evolved as well. He has gone from Godzilla to Road Runner, the lumbering upright posture replaced with a speedy level-backed gait. As for Apatosaurus, he long ago left the swamp. The theory that put him there—that without water to buoy him, his limbs would be too weak to support his bulk—turned out to be false.

Keeping the Internet free

Internet freedom is not something to be taken lightly, as anyone who has tried to gain access to forbidden sites in China will tell you. The countries that would like to censor Internet content, including Russia, China, Iran and others, were eager to see their authority to do so etched into a United Nations treaty debated at a conference last month in Dubai. The United States and other nations committed to a free and open Internet refused to sign the treaty. It was a largely symbolic protest but the right thing to do.

The World Conference on International Telecommunications brought together 193 nations to consider revisions to principles last modified in the pre-Internet days of 1988. The principles govern the largely technical work of a specialized U.N. agency,Find Complete Details about howo tractor Truck. the International Telecommunications Union. Much of the conference debate turned on whether the principles should be expanded to give national governments and the agency more voice in regulating the Internet.

Those governments that hunger for more control are not paragons of freedom. China, which already maintains the world's most pervasive Internet censorship machine, tightened its controls at year's end, requiring users of social media to disclose their identities. Russia has been moving toward selective eavesdropping to tamp down dissent. The treaty debated in Dubai may not change anything they are already doing but could provide a veneer of political cover.

The United States objected to a resolution appended to the treaty saying that "all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance." Translation: Let national governments get their hands on it. The United States has maintained that Internet governance should rest, as it does now, with a loose group of organizations, including the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages domain names and addresses under contract with the U.S. Commerce Department. There are suspicions aplenty in the rest of the world that this is the equivalent of U.S. control — suspicions that should not be ignored.We can supply howo truck products as below. While the Internet cannot fall into the hands of those who would censor and restrict it, the United States should put more effort into remaking the current model so that it can serve what has become a global infrastructure.

Ambassador Terry Kramer, who headed the U.S. delegation in Dubai, was clear that a power grab by the repressive countries was a non-starter. "No single organization or government can or should attempt to control the Internet or dictate its future development," Mr. Kramer insisted.

The conference did serve to highlight broad, opposing camps over Internet freedom.We have many different types of crys talbeads wholesale. After the United States pulled out, 89 nations signed the agreement, including Russia, China, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. The blank screen of the Internet censor is not likely to disappear soon. A long and fateful battle looms for digital freedom.

The Niles Public Library has begun a $5.5 million renovation that will add study and meeting space, use technology to check in and keep track of books and improve energy efficiency.

The last renovations were 13 years ago, and trustees have been putting money aside each year since, meaning no referendum measure to raise the funds was needed, said Sue Wilsey, head of marketing and public relations. The work is expected to be completed near the end of the year.

"We're definitely going to have additional study room space and meeting spaces, which is what the public needs," Wilsey said. "We're going to have a computer training lab and a brand new board room. We're going to renovate to make the entry more energy efficient," providing a warm place for those waiting for the Niles Free Bus.

Also new will be a tracking wand to help locate mis-shelved books and those that are checked out. Automatic check-in terminals will be installed.

"It's really going to streamline things," Wilsey said. "There will still be people available in the lobby, but they're going to be transformed into more of a concierge individual."

What now houses fiction in the basement will be transformed into a computer area and a teen center. The first floor common area will have comfortable seats and easy access to popular materials, so people can hang out with a vending cafeteria that will sell coffee and drinks. It will also contain a space for pre-teens where they can play video games, and a toddlers' area called an Early Literacy Space where there will be lots of hands-on and learning activities.

The second floor will contain fiction, audio-visual material, DVD's and audio books. The third floor will contain a gas fireplace with chairs in the turret of the building.

"It's going to look cozy when people drive by," said Wilsey. "It's going to be so filled with bright light that people will want to come and sit and get a magazine or on a computer."

It seems pretty inevitable for a mobile app to go cross-platform, especially since it was created by former Googlers. But Ian Mendiola, co-founder and CEO at Umano-maker SoThree, said he realized that Android should be a priority after a marketing stunt where team members boarded Caltrain (that’s the commuter rail running between San Jose, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco) with fliers promoting the app, and they saw that many of the interested users owned Android phones.

The content is the same in both versions of the app, with about 20 articles selected each day by the Umano team and read by voice actors (so it sounds like a real news broadcast, not a robotic text-to-speech translator). It’s divided into six categories: Entertaining,Find Complete Details about howo tractor Truck. Must Know, Geeky, Entrepreneurial, Inspirational, and Scientific — Mendiola said he was particularly impressed by the popularity of self-help content. The company doesn’t have a relationship with any of the publishers,Want to find howo concrete mixer? he added, but it hasn’t received any complaints, and “if content owners would like their content taken down we’re happy to work with them.”

The Android app includes some platform-specific features, including Google+ integration and rich notifications, allowing users to access playback controls directly within their app notifications. There are, however, some features that haven’t made the transition to Android yet, including the ability to create playlists (so you can create a list at the beginning of your commute, then just let it run as you drive) and download content for offline listening — adding those features to Android is the company’s next goal, Mendiola said.

The team has bigger goals too. Mendiola said he wants to add more personalization to the app, so that it can create an automatic playlist based on your interests and the length of your commute. He also wants to “open up more of a voice actor marketplace,” so actors could visit the site and upload their own recordings, rather than waiting for an assignment from Umano.

Chopp Tour of East Asia Builds Connections

President Rebecca Chopp traveled to Hong Kong,We open source indoor tracking system that was developed with the goal of providing at least room-level accuracy. Shanghai, Seoul, and Tokyo this winter break to meet with students, parents, and alumni. According to Chopp, the number of international students from Asian countries at Swarthmore has been increasing over the past decade, making Asia increasingly important for the College’s outreach efforts. In each city, Chopp held an event to discuss Swarthmore’s strategic plans for the future.

East Asia’s representation in the student body has been growing with each incoming class. As of 2011, out of 134 international students from 49 countries, 31 were from South Korea, 19 from China, and seven each from Hong Kong and India, which is a dramatic jump from one, five, four, and one students respectively in 2000. By contrast, non-Asian countries tend to have only one or two students at Swarthmore.

Chopp thinks that the growing population of international students from Asian countries at Swarthmore will have an effect on the ways in which the College is run. “The students mold the curriculum,” she said. She stated that one of her goals is to extend need-blind admissions to international students.

Chopp believes that a large presence of international students on campus is beneficial for the whole student body. “It’s one thing to read a book about Japan, and a whole other thing to be in a class with someone from Japan,” she said. “For domestic students, to have the experience of those linkages is extremely important.”

Tatsuya Ueda ’16, a student from Japan, agreed, saying he thinks it is important for students “to share cultural views and values.The stone mosaic series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos.” He said he hopes Chopp’s visit will promote connections.

Chopp explained that, in addition to Asia, she often visits areas with lots of alumni such as Europe. “What these trips are about is relationship-building,” she said.

When asked why Swarthmore and other Liberal Arts colleges are becoming more popular in Asia, Chopp said that “American education has a reputation for driving innovation … our top schools are phenomenal.”

Several Asian universities, such as the University of Hong Kong, United International College in Guangzhou, and the University of Tokyo, are starting to implement elements of Liberal Arts schools. Yale has even started a Liberal Arts campus in Singapore.

Ueda believes it is significant that the concept of the Liberal Arts is becoming more popular in Asia. “I think Swarthmore’s type of education is really necessary in Japan,” he said. “Japanese universities are more for socializing and having fun, whereas going to an American school is more purposeful.”

Parents also play a big part in the choice to go to a Liberal Arts college. “A lot of our international parents travel to the U.S. anyway,” said Chopp, which helps introduce them to schools like Swarthmore.

“They’ve never seen education like this,” she said. She joked that some parents don’t want to leave after dropping their kids off during orientation.

High-schoolers in Asia find out about Swarthmore through three mechanisms: the web, alumni, and the admissions office,A Dessicant dry cabinet is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal. said Chopp. “The web is a great advantage. We get students who reach out first,” she said.

This was the President’s first time going to China on behalf of Swarthmore, but she has visited Asia many times before. She is also involved with the Robert H N Ho Foundation, a charity organization based in Hong Kong that promotes Asian art.

The release of “12 Zodiacs” is similar to DRM-free download experiments by Radiohead and Louis CK, but with a difference: Wang is much more influential. He may not be a celebrity in the West,Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. but to get an idea of the Taiwanese-American Wang’s reach, take a look at his Sina Weibo account, the third most popular one on the Chinese microblogging platform, with more than 28.9 million fans. Only three people–Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry–have more followers on Twitter.

Wang’s team rebuilt his official Web site so they can sell music directly from it. This year, Wang plans to team up with other musicians to create a new site that will allow them to “share their creative works in an economically viable way.”

“The Asian music industry is sustainable in many ways, and I am tremendously fortunate to continue to benefit from that and be able to do what I love for a living. But I think, like any industry, we need to continue to look forward and evolve, and a significant aspect of that is finding new, mutually beneficial ways for artists to share content with fans. What we’ve done with the release of ’12 Zodiacs’ is just one experiment in that vein,” Wang said in an email.

It is important to note that piracy has not been as disruptive to the music industry in China as it has been in the West. Harold Li, who directs the digital sales initiative on wangleehom.com, says that album sales have never been a significant source of revenue for Wang, who, like other major artists in Asia, earns most of his revenue from concert ticket sales and brand endorsements. Confronting music piracy is a secondary issue. Instead, the DRM-free online release of “12 Zodiacs” explores what different directions the Asian music industry can take in order to cultivate new talent.

Wang’s success and celebrity has given him the freedom to tackle social issues that are usually missing from Mandopop, which has a reputation for catchy tunes but fluffy lyrics. For example, with past releases Wang has looked at environmental issues and Asian American culture and identity. But younger artists who don’t have the leverage to draw crowds or ink advertising deals often struggle to break into the music industry, let alone find a wide audience for anything truly original.

For example, South Korea and Japan‘s popular music industries are (in)famous for training, grooming and assembling groups with clinical precision.Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. Even in Taiwan, known for being the center of the vast Mandopop industry as well as a host of renowned indie bands, emerging artists often feel enormous pressure to fit into a very specific mold. Last year, Taiwanese-American singer Joanna Wang went on Reddit to repudiate her hit debut album, which she referred to as a “a shitastic record with the cheesiest and cliche 80′s-esque music videos to very lame music that my label [Sony Music Taiwan] coerced me into singing.”

The release of “12 Zodiacs” looks how whether or not it will be possible for an artist to operate independently from record labels by launching and promoting tracks on their own Web platforms–in effect, making each artist the founder of his or her own startup. If the idea takes off, it can mean more diversity in this region’s music industry.

“The Chinese music industry is very innovative, and it’s a personal mission of mine to make sure we do a better job showing that to the world,” said Wang. “I think artists old and new will find, as I have, that the best way of building an audience is to directly engage fans, particularly through digital platforms such as Weibo, WeChat, Youku, or YouTube.”

Though Wang’s company doesn’t release sales figures, Li says “12 Zodiacs” got 2 million views in the first week and a half after it went live on last month. Many of Wang’s fans throughout China don’t use credit cards, so his company made a deal with Alibaba’s Alipay to support online payments.

One goal of Wang’s experiment is to find artists capable of creating content with international appeal and then spread their work. Wang also hopes to expose more listeners to Chinese-language pop music across the world, even those who aren’t native speakers. One of his goals to break into the U.S., where there are significant barriers for Asian artists in the U.S. music industry despite the growing global appetite for Asian pop music around the world.

The Aftermath Exhibition

It’s January and I most certainly have the post-Christmas blues. My fingers are numb with cold; I’m on the classic New Year I-will-only-eat-vegetables diet; I’ve signed up to a gym membership that I will probably won’t use beyond February; and I almost wept at my last bank statement. So nothing sounded more fitting than Bar Lane Studio’s ‘Aftermath exhibition’ about ‘a typical January, looking at the stereotypical concept of diets, not having any money and sales shopping’. And all for free!

Bar Lane Studios is an excellent and quirky space, providing a nice arty get-away from shopping in the centre – especially when it’s sale season. I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this exhibition but I was pleasantly surprised by its variety. Following on from the opening event ‘Chalksville’ on Saturday 12th January is a yard sale hosted by Chalky the Yorkie. Wandering around the studio with a cup of tea, changing the records,Buy Joan Rivers crystal mosaic Stretch Bracelet. Chalky explained that it is an attempt to downsize. The sale is as much an exhibition as the art on the walls, showcasing an impressive selection of vinyl, including French EPs, along with pottery and clothing made by the artist.

Chalky’s work dominates the studio, and while a lot of it is not fitting with the post-Christmas theme it doesn’t really seem to matter. In particular, his series of paintings inspired by images from the Hubble Telescope are well worth a visit. If anything, his effort to sell off a culmination of work and bits and bobs – if not Christmas-themed – embodies the spirit of the January purge.

The works specific to the theme are light-hearted and entertaining. Jade Blood’s wall drape stating ‘Merry Xmas Fatties’ nicely summaries how most of us feel about our festive figures, and comes with an ‘it’s a joke’ disclaimer in case it hits a little too close to home for anyone self-conscious about their over-indulgence. Her work is tinged with cynicism, featuring pieces such as ‘Mini-Break For One’ along with a Christmas tree decorated with a black bag over the top and the words ‘You Left Me’. It speaks to both those with a year-round grudge against Christmas and those betrayed by the brevity of the excitement.

My personal favourite is the collection of hilarious photos of Santa with rather upset children. ‘12 days of Christmas’ by Steve Humble has had mixed reactions, flipping the joy of visiting the Grotto on its head with some inappropriate looking Santa’s along with a terrifying Donnie Darko-esque Rabbit/Grinch image. Printed on standard paper and blue-tacked to the wall, the piece is simple, bringing home the hilarity of Christmas and the dark undertones of sitting your children on a stranger’s lap.

Finally, Sophie Polyviou’s ‘Fake Tan Salon’ brings back the hope of summer as the snow falls outside. An open submission project featuring Polaroid and photographs, Polyviou describes the piece as ‘an exhibition of second hand sunshine to wash away those post Xmas doldrums’. It nicely captivates the switching mind-set of January as we replace Christmas cheer with anticipation of summer sun – hence the gym membership!

A varied and unusual exhibition, ‘The Aftermath Exhibition’ is well-worth the venture to the top of Micklegate. It provides a refreshing insight into the post-Christmas blues that are synonymous with January and you even get to do some vintage shopping alongside the art.

Russell Smith knows a lot about airplanes, especially those of the WWI era. He knows the rich history, the pilots, the events surrounding their use, and the nuances of their form.

No, he’s not a pilot. He is a gifted painter who specializes in aviation art.

Smith, 43, has had an affinity for aviation since he was a child. He remembers flying in a plane at a young age and being aware of how the view from above provided a unique perspective of the world.You can buy mosaic Moon yarns and fibers right here as instock.The stone mosaic series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos.

He thought about becoming an aerospace engineer, but once he started taking art classes in college, he knew how he would pursue his love of aviation.

Smith has worked in all mediums, but eventually came to work primarily in oils.

After graduating from college, he spent 10 years working as a graphic designer. At the end of the workday, he would go home and work on his paintings for hours.

Smith’s technique is modeled after the French Realist style of painting. His paintings look so realistic, the viewer feels drawn in to the scene. Smith’s process is involved. A history buff, he researches the history surrounding the work in his aviation art. After he collects as much information as possible and can imagine how a particular scene might have happened, he conveys it through his work, putting an artistic interpretation to a historical event.

“I don’t just need to make it historically accurate. I have to make it evocative and draw the viewer in so they are interested,Our aim is to supply air purifier which will best perform to the customer's individual requirements.” said Smith.

Smith is in demand for commissioned work from collectors around the world. He also occasionally has paintings available for sale to the public, featured on his website. His work has graced the covers of several aviation magazines and he has done art for books as well.

Smith’s work has been in many galleries and he has been the recipient of several awards, including The “James V. Roy” award, the top award given by the American Society of Aviation Artists. He is the first artist in their history to win this award three times.

Recognition of his work by curators at the National Air and Space Museum led to his nomination for a Smithsonian artist research fellowship. He submitted a proposal of a series of paintings of WWI aircrafts that are currently shown at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

The time it takes for Smith to do a painting varies, with smaller works taking three to four weeks and larger pieces requiring three to four months. In addition, he does aviation art from WWII through the present, as well as landscapes and other artwork featuring a variety of different subjects. In all genres,For the world leader in injection molds base services and plastic injection products. he does original pieces and fine art reproductions.

Civic legacy left for Ebensburg

"That, to me, was the start of the entire renaissance of our downtown," said friend Eric Rummel, 60, an Ebensburg native and resident who, as a Vice President of First National Bank worked with Kimball on a myriad of civic and business projects over the years. "He did more for this community than most people realize," Rummel added, noting that Kimball did what was best for the town and not what was best for himself.

When Rummel managed what was then Laurel Bank in Ebensburg, Kimball sat on the bank's board and was always someone he could turn to for advice and guidance.

"He was the best coach and mentor you could ever want," Rummel said.We have many different types of crys talbeads wholesale. "He always made time. He was always available."

It was 60 years ago this year that L. Robert Kimball opened his surveying and engineering firm, L. Kimball & Associates, in his hometown of Ebensburg. Despite growing his business to include hundreds of employees and more than a dozen offices in five states, he kept the company's headquarters in Ebensburg and worked all his life to make his hometown a better place, according to friends and community leaders.Find Complete Details about howo tractor Truck.

"We rented the second floor to him when he opened his business," said Ebensburg native, attorney Freemont McKenrick, 89. McKenrick remembered Kimball as quite an athlete in his youth and the two earned their Eagle Scout honors in the same Boy Scout Troop. McKenrick pointed out how his friend was a highly decorated fighter pilot in World War II, serving with the Army Air Force.

McKenrick recalled one innovation Kimball brought to his work, the use of airplanes to take photographs to create tax maps that became part of the Cambria County tax registry.

Above all, Kimball was a friendly, charitable man who loved his community and gave his time, money and resources to help whenever and wherever he could, whether it be the Historical Society or the Ebensburg airport.

"He'll be sadly missed," McKenrick said. "He was a very good friend and I appreciated everything from him and his work in the community."

Ebensburg Mayor Randy Datsko said Kimball was "a very humble, very approachable" man who made a tremendously positive impact on Ebensburg.

"Mr. Kimball had a vision for the downtown," Datsko said, noting Kimball was instrumental in not only contructing what is now called Kimball Park at Center and High streets but also the landscape of the downtown, from the street lights to the renovation of buildings.

Borough Manager Dan Penatzer recalled Kimball as someone who was always involved and actively worked to improve Ebensburg. Penatzer said that kimball could have moved his business out of the town as it grew larger but he always stayed true to his hometown.

If the Senate confirms Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, he will confront a set of challenges similar to those faced by Charles E. Wilson in 1953, James Schlesinger in 1973 and Dick Cheney in 1991. In each of those cases, recent long and costly wars were drawing to a close, and traditional enemies were disappearing or being replaced.

Those defense secretaries oversaw drawdowns in the military budget averaging 34 percent. A comparable decline is likely over the next 10 years. The United States overspends on its military, and these resources could be better invested elsewhere, either through tax cuts today or deficit reduction that will ease the burden of taxes on future generations.

Hagel should start by setting the record straight on military spending.Find Complete Details about howo tractor Truck.Want to find howo concrete mixer? The charts make the challenge clear. Non-war spending has barely declined and will remain well above the post-Cold War average even if sequestration-level cuts go into effect. And he should neither back away from his assertion in 2011 that the Pentagon's budget is "bloated" and "must be pared down" nor withdraw his endorsement of the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan. He should scrutinize Pentagon spending, and invite others to do the same. Knowing what the taxpayers spend is a crucial step for any SecDef who wishes to manage the Pentagon, rather than be managed by it.We can supply howo truck products as below. Knowing why we spend it is equally vital. If Hagel intends to implement a responsible drawdown in Pentagon spending, he must champion conservative values of self-reliance and responsibility among America's allies. Burden sharing is good; burden shifting is better. If other countries take on full responsibility for defending themselves, they can also do more to secure common interests, reducing the risks for American troops and costs for American taxpayers.

The Obama administration has shown little interest in letting allies bear a greater share of their defense burden. But it has consciously moved away from nation-building as a cure for terrorism. The revised strategic guidance released a year ago declared that "U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations." And, with the important exception of the ill-advised troop surge in Afghanistan in 2009, President Obama has otherwise resisted the impulse to put large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground. Hagel shares the same inclinations. This important shift away from armed social work allows for significant reductions in the numbers of active-duty personnel in the Army and Marine Corps. Still, under current plans both forces will be larger in 2017 than they were before 2002. Meanwhile, personnel costs continue to rise. Containing these costs should be a major priority lest they strip more fighting power. Numerous think tanks, ad hoc study groups and even members of Congress have put forward specific proposals for reducing the Pentagon's budget. I especially recommend Carl Conetta's latest report from the Project on Defense Alternatives.

An easy place to start is the vehicles Congress forces the military to buy even when it has enough (for example, tanks built in Ohio and destined for long-term parking in the California desert). Hagel should also consider cutting the raft of non-military activities documented in Sen. Tom Coburn's report, "Department of Everything."

Then there are things that the military wants but doesn't actually need. This would include weapon systems designed for fighting unlikely wars, and legacy systems that should be superseded by new technologies. For example, the Navy should revisit its plan to build 55 Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), a coast-guard cutter for other nations' coasts that has been plagued by technical and operational difficulties. The Navy should scrutinize, along with the Marine Corps, the costs versus the capabilities of the troubled F-35, and ponder cost-effective alternatives. And it should be forced to justify the enormous expense of the next-generation ballistic missile submarine, SSBN(X). If compelled to choose between more "boomers," more attack submarines, or more conventional surface combatants, what would the admirals pick? Hagel should ask that question.

Likewise, the Air Force should be asked whether the marginal benefits that would accrue from retaining the bomber leg of the nuclear triad are worth having fewer F-35s, fewer tankers, or fewer bombers dedicated solely to conventional strike missions. Or perhaps the Air Force should retire the other leg of the triad, the land-based ICBMs that look increasingly like relics of a bygone era?

New York enacts gun-control law, first since Newtown attack

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday signed into law one of the nation’s toughest gun-control measures and the first to be enacted since the mass shooting last month at an elementary school in neighboring Connecticut.

The bill passed the Democratic-led Assembly on Tuesday afternoon, a day after sweeping through the Republican-majority Senate.

The bill expands the state’s ban on assault weapons, puts limits on ammunition capacity and has new measures to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

Cuomo pressed for passage of the bill after a gunman killed 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, just over one month ago.

The measure also mandates a life sentence without parole for anyone who murders a first responder.Bottle cutters let you turn old glass mosaic and wine bottles into bottle art! Just two weeks after the massacre in Connecticut, an arsonist gunman ambushed and killed two firefighters responding to a fire he had set near Rochester.

At a signing ceremony in Albany, Cuomo said provisions of the bill, such as limiting gun clips to seven rounds and mental health screening for weapons purchases, were essential to making New Yorkers safer.

“People who are mentally ill should not have access to guns, that’s common sense,” Cuomo said. “That’s probably the hallmark of this bill,When I first started creating broken china mosaic. coming up with a system that allows for mental-health screens.”

“Seven bullets in a gun, why? Because the high-capacity magazines that give you the capacity to kill a large number of human beings in a very short period of time is nonsensical to a civil society,” Cuomo said.

Police have said the gunman in Newtown, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, carried numerous high-capacity magazines and that he changed gun clips several times, allowing him to unleash at least 150 rounds in his 10-minute assault on the elementary school.We open source indoor tracking system that was developed with the goal of providing at least room-level accuracy. Some victims were shot as many as 11 times.

Gun rights advocates lashed out at Cuomo and New York’s law, decrying the speed at which the legislation moved through New York’s statehouse. The state’s lawmakers have been back at work for less than a week.

“The National Rifle Association and our New York members are outraged at the draconian gun control bill that was rushed through the process late Monday evening,” the NRA, the nation’s most powerful gun rights lobby group, said in a statement.

“These gun control schemes have failed in the past and will have no impact on public safety and crime,” the NRA said. “Sadly, the New York Legislature gave no consideration to that reality.”

Also on Tuesday in Danbury,A Dessicant dry cabinet is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal. Connecticut, not far from Newtown, gun control advocates gathered for a rally outside a Walmart store to demand Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the nation’s largest gun retailer, stop selling assault weapons.

Among those at the rally were Lori Haas, whose daughter was injured in the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, and Pam Simon, who was wounded in the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that also critically injured former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The Newtown killings plunged the rural New England town of 27,000 into grief along with much of the nation and prompted President Barack Obama to form a task force headed by Vice President Joe Biden to find ways to curb gun violence. Obama is scheduled to unveil the recommendations on Wednesday.

In a White House news conference on Monday, Obama signaled he will ask Congress to ban military-style assault weapons, require stronger background checks for gun buyers and put tighter controls on high-capacity magazine clips.

Of the two new apps, I had an easier time adjusting to SwiftKey 3, which uses a traditional on-screen keyboard and guesses what you'll type next by using a predictive language algorithm. It also incorporates touch gestures, like a right-to-left swipe across the keyboard to delete the last word and left-to-right swipe from the period button to insert a question mark.

Snapkeys Si was a tougher adjustment: It abandons the traditional keyboard altogether, forcing users to type on just four squares that hold 12 letters; all other letters are produced by tapping in the blank space between these four squares. Like SwiftKey 3, it uses some swipe gestures, like a right-side diagonal swipe down to create a period. Snapkeys Si aims to solve fat-finger syndrome, giving people's fingers bigger targets and guessing the words they mean to type.

The BlackBerry 10 is scheduled to be launched on Jan. 30. I got some hands-on time with its on-screen keyboard, and was impressed by its suggested words, which users can swipe up to throw into sentences. This is designed to make the device easy to use with one hand. The BlackBerry 10 keyboard also reads and learns exactly where a user taps each key to better predict which letter to type, so clumsy fingers make fewer mistakes.

SwiftKey 3 for Android is an app that has a healthy understanding of how language is used in everyday conversation,Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. and supports 54 languages, including variations like American, British and Australian English. Creator TouchType scraped Internet language data from around the world to understand how people speak in real-life situations—not by studying a dictionary. It then used this knowledge to create a predictive algorithm that guesses what you're likely to type next, suggesting three options above the keyboard as you go.

This app can also detect where you meant to add a space, automatically adding it in for you. I found this feature to be a handy time saver as I typed since I could just keep going rather than stopping to tap the space key after each word.

During setup, SwiftKey 3 users can opt to give the app access to their Gmail, Facebook Twitter and SMS interactions so that it can study a user's language to further understand how the person talks. For example, if someone always preferred to spell "thanks" as "thx," SwiftKey 3 would learn this behavior and add "thx" in as a word rather than continuously trying to correct it. A TouchType spokesman says later this year the company may add a feature allowing users to customize the app to write out complete words when they type abbreviations, like typing "abt" to get "about."

For privacy purposes, the app only stores this data locally on your phone rather than sending it back to the company for making improvements. And you can erase the app's personalized data at any time in Settings, Personalization, Clear Language Data.

SwiftKey 3 is free for the first month, and then costs $3.99 to continue using it. The app will remember all of your custom language settings when you upgrade, so you don't have to reteach it.